The Reluctant Allegory?

Much ado is being made of the movie adaptations of the Narnia books and how Christian they are going to be (more importantly how much money will Christian film-goers spend on them). Everyone knows that C.S. Lewis drew a lot of parallels between the Bible and the Narnia books, but his books also embrace ancient pagan myths and stories that color the entire world of Narnia.

David Van Biema writing for Time magazine talks about the Christian and pagan elements in the books.

“Lewis always insisted that his seven Narnia books were not a point-by-point Christian allegory. Much of The Lion, the Witch owes more to English folktales or Norse and classical myth than to the New Testament. The passage of the four Pevensie children through the magic closet into a world laboring under a spell of eternal winter is not Christian, nor are the cruel white witch, talking animals, centaurs, and even a duo of Roman gods who inhabit it. True, the description of the redeeming figure of the lion Aslan as “the Son the Great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea” is a big hint. But even Aslan’s sacrifice on a huge stone table (not a cross; and performed with a stone knife, Aztec-style), and his subsequent miraculous recovery could have been borrowed from any number of world religions.”

Writer and Inklings expert Andrew Rilstone exlains that many people look too hard for direct biblical allegories and that the texts were never meant to be read in that manner.

“I think part of the point of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is that Lewis’s allegories, or analogies, or fables or parables or whatever, are not very self-consistent. I think that this is a strength, not a weakness, of the books. Lewis doesn’t say that Aslan’s death at the stone table ‘is’ the crucifixion or ‘represents’ the crucifixion – he prefers to say that it is ‘like’ it or ‘intended to make you think of it’… It is rather too easy to be dogmatic and say… the Narnia books are Christian parables and you have jolly well got to read them like that because Lewis said so.”

Scholar Ronald Hutton in his book “Witches, Druids and King Arthur” reveals from Lewis’ own writings that the concept of Narnia emerged independent of any Christian allegorical intentions.

“All my seven Narnian books, and my three science fiction books, began with seeing pictures in my head. At first they were not a story, just pictures. The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. At first I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think that I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don’t know where the Lion came from or why He came… At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them.” – C.S. Lewis

Hutton concludes that Narnia came from “the rich humus left by Lewis’s first and greatest love, his reading into the worlds of classical and northern paganism, of medieval romance and of fairy tale.”

So while the Narnia books (and movies to come) can indeed be read as a biblical allegory by the fans who wish to see them that way, they can also be viewed as fairy adventures with heavy classical pagan elements, or as unique fantasy stories independent of allegory. All variations are valid for each individual’s enjoyment of the works. If anything I resent the crass overtures to the “Passion audience” far more than I resent Christian allegory.

Tags: Neopaganism